DHAKA: Bangladesh's national carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines is evaluating a proposal to buy 10 Airbus aircraft, after earlier this month agreeing its biggest-ever purchase, 14 planes from US manufacturer Boeing, officials said Sunday.
Dhaka's state-run BSS news agency said that Biman was assessing the European offer, after committing an estimated $3.7 billion to the Boeing order.
"We have received a fresh proposal from Airbus recently and our techno-finance committee is now evaluating it," Biman General Manager Bushra Islam told BSS.
The proposal is for four Airbus A350-900 wide-body aircraft and six Airbus A321neo jets, BSS reported.
"A mixed fleet allows an airline to deploy the most suitable aircraft depending on passenger demand, route performance and cost structure," Islam told BSS.
Biman on May 1 agreed to the 14-plane Boeing purchase -- a deal negotiated last year as part of a tariff agreement with the United States.
That deal calls for the delivery over the next decade of eight 787-10 Dreamliners, two 787-9 Dreamliners and four single-aisle 737-8 MAX jets.
Before the Boeing deal, Bangladesh reportedly had 19 aircraft in its current fleet, an estimated 14 of them from Boeing.
The purchase was agreed in August 2025 by the caretaker government which ran the South Asian nation of 170 million people after a 2024 revolution, until a new government was elected in February.
Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest garment manufacturer, struck a trade deal with the United States to scale back President Donald Trump's punishing tariffs.
The United States represents 20 percent of Bangladesh's ready-made garments exports.
Dhaka proposed buying Boeing planes and boosting imports of US wheat, cotton and oil to help narrow its trade deficit, which Trump used as justification for imposing painful levies.
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